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Astronomer Galileo Galilee once proclaimed, “Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” Following that poetic logic, such a remarkable liquid should be sipped from a vessel no less resplendent. And wine glasses, like lucent picture frames showcasing works of art, enhance the essence of their contents with total transparency.

Throughout the centuries, the basic elements of wine glass design—the clear bowl, stem, and foot—have not changed a great deal. In fact, the glasses depicted in Bonifacio Veronese’s famed 16th-century painting “The Last Supper” look surprisingly similar to the glasses used as instruments on YouTube to play “Ode to Joy.” But in recent years, scientific innovation and subtle modifications in shape, size, and construction have fine-tuned and improved the performance of stemware tremendously.

Much of this advancement can be attributed to Clause Josef Riedel who, in the 1950s, discovered that the shape, volume, rim diameter, finish, and thickness of the glass determine how aromas strike the nose and where precisely the wine touches the palate. If you consider the map of the tongue’s taste receptors—sweet on the tip, tart on the sides, savory in the middle, and bitter in the back—it makes sense that directing the flow of wine to a particular spot might enhance the tasting experience.

I recently attended a stemware seminar sponsored by Classic Party Rentals at which a representative from Riedel Crystal guided our group through numerous side-by-side tastings of the same wine in a variety of glasses. We first appreciated the appearance, aromas, and flavors from the appropriate glass, and then poured the remaining liquid into glasses that were either of lower quality or designed for another varietal. The results were astonishing.

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We quickly learned that the bowl’s size and curvature alter the arrangement of aromas, which are layered according to their density and specific gravity, and influences the order in which these aromatics are experienced. The shape can also highlight particular flavors, such as fruit or spice, by directing them to the appropriate taste receptors, a principle that’s also effective in minimizing a certain grape’s less desirable qualities. Bowl width also increases the wine’s rate of oxidation, allowing the tannins to integrate better and for the complexity to be drawn out. That’s why wide-bowled stemware is ideal for red wines that require plenty of air to reveal their full flavor.

Inspired by Riedel, many wine glass producers have developed varietal-specific stemware. Do you need to purchase a different glass for each grape? That depends on your budget, usage, and cupboard space, but professional opinions on the topic vary greatly. Wine Spectator’s James Laube claims that a simple burgundy glass is all that he requires, and Santa Barbara’s Bob Wesley of The Winehound takes a similarly no-nonsense approach. “While it’s important to use quality glassware to help focus aromas and flavors,” he said, “you really don’t need a varietal-specific glass to enjoy your wine.” Though he sells the entire line of Riedel stemware, he recommends purchasing a good burgundy glass with a deep bowl that allows for “maniacal swirling, without spilling wine on the carpet, couch, or nearby pets.”

In contrast, David Cable of East Beach Wine Company encourages oenophiles to invest in an array of top-quality stemware in order to maximize the flavors of the wines they purchase. “You don’t get the full experience of what a wine has to offer, especially the nuances, by drinking it out of the wrong glass,” he claimed. Cable offers the entire Riedel stemware line at his La Arcada store and even sells Eisch glassware, which are “breathable” wine glasses from Germany made with high-tech, oxygenated glass.

I enjoy the ceremonial aspect of selecting the glassware most suitable for a particular wine and have four glasses—burgundy, bordeaux, white wine, and champagne—that I use for every sipping situation. But I also feel that so much creative expression and work goes into a bottle of wine that I can’t imagine pouring it into a glass that didn’t honor that effort by showcasing the wine’s finest attributes. And as I settle down this winter with an enigmatic pinot, framed in a beautiful, crystalline burgundy glass, I’ll know that I’m savoring the full spectrum of the wine’s color, aromas, and flavors—and celebrating it as art.

The shape of the glass influences the weight of the waft of flavor ascending into the Schnozzola?

As an alcoholic, I can say, keep the glass, gimme the bottle, leave me alone, and I'll show you glass, the bottom of the articulately guzzled bottle. Hrmph.

For fine wining dining, visit Cabrillo Ball Park, home of the heavy sluggers. Ask the experts about sniff and sip, waft and swallow, and breathe in and suck up.

For those who have the time and avocation to participate in differentiating in the different tingles of their tongue and nose, this nerve, no the next one over, oh my, that was so subtle a difference, tee hee, and have the extra meat between the ears to discuss such other revealing topics such as, oh my is the mayor pregnant yet, will Double Tree ever change its name to Double Over Charged, if God is omniscient why did she invent science, how come car and pet makes carpet, why are people still saying twothousandten rather than twenty ten we never heard anyone say onethousandninehundredten, but nineteen ten, and finally if you are reading this, you need to do it with a bottle of wine in some oxygenated glass. Hurray for Serendipity and Saran is dippity.

Wow, what a lot of energy devoted to the consumption of alcohol. A Spanish phrase comes to my half-awake mind: "a buen provecho no hay pan duro" (literally: to good appetite there is no hard bread--or simply when one is truly hungry, anything tastes good)

I realize many people live for that point in the day when they can hit the bottle so all I ask is that they please keep it off the road.

The whole wino culture is just so much lipstick on a pig (and no, Sarah Palin did NOT invent that saying!), trying to dress up drinking as some sort of culturally-elite ceremonial ritual.

Sorry...but no matter how expensive a vehicle one drives, how fancy a "tasting room" one has one's designer-clothed bottom perched in, or how much said fool pays for a bottle of rotgut, it's still booze, they're still stupid enough to drive a gas-guzzler cuz all their friends drive them, and they are still parked in a bar.

Nothing but a row of fools on a row of stools...drinking...and driving.

You guys should stop littering this website and instead have a pity party to toast the fact that most of the world can have a couple drinks and not fall off the deep end. Fermented grains, in fact, may have given rise to civilization as we know it, so fermented grapes can't be so bad. if you don't like it then leave. Please, at least, stop peppering this site with your lame and lackluster diatribes. We're all old enough to know better.